Half-Naked Female Jedis, Coming Right Up in Clone Wars

Looking for some Friday night cleavage? Try the newest episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars on for size. In "Jedi Crash," Anakin Skywalker is taken out of commission and his already lightly clothed Padawan, Ahsoka Tano, teams up with another female Jedi, Aayla Secura, to find medical help on a strange planet. Well, that and some clothes.

We joke, but one of the sticking points keeping the latest version of The Clone Wars from becoming the finest animated series on television is its females.

Take Ahsoka, or "Snips" as Anakin humorously refers to her. It’s a given that she’s a young Togruta Jedi from the planet Shili, which is blanketed with grassy scrublands and canopy forests. But has anyone told her that space is cold? Or that young girls wearing very little clothing, regardless of their lightsaber skills, might titillate the wrong people, in fiction and in reality?

After all, like Princess Leia before her, Ahsoka eventually ends up as a sex slave. At least, that’s how we read the picture at right, which hails from Dark Horse’s comicStar Wars The Clone Wars 3: Slaves of the Republic, as well as the first third of Return of the Jedi.

What’s that you say? There’s no sex in Star Wars? Whatever you say, fanboy.

And then there is Aayla Secura, who made short appearances in both Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. In the latter film, it seems like she only appeared long enough to show off some impressively foregrounded cleavage, right before she was assassinated as part of Palpatine’s eradication of the Jedi order. Friday night’s "Jedi Crash," in contrast, offers Lucasfilm an opportunity to further flesh out, pardon the pun, her character and history.

"This was our opportunity to really find out what she was like," supervising director Dave Filoni explained in a press release. "When we were developing her, the original concept for her voice was street tough and recognizably American. Then we hit on the idea of giving her more of a French accent, and that really helped us define her personality. Jennifer Hale does a great job voicing Aayla, adding new dimensions to the character and making her into something like a tough, older sister to Ahsoka."

That’s fine and all, but one thing Ahsoka doesn’t seem to lack is toughness. She remains one of the only characters to have battled both Ventress and Grievous, and lived to tell about it. She’s also outsmarted Dooku, and saved Anakin’s bacon more than once. So when does she win the long-sleeve shirt?

After all, more than one Jedi has trudged his way through the searing heat of Tattooine wearing a floor-length robe. Much of this could be marketing, and much of it could be demographics. After all, the term "fanboy" has gone mainstream. One doesn’t hear "fangirl" too often, if ever.

But you decide, in the end, what works and what doesn’t. So you tell us: Do Ahsoka and Secura need to dress in line with the Jedi code, which allegedly prizes modesty and humility above most else? Do Ahsoka and Secura’s home worlds rationalize their sexy outfits? Is this is a horny tempest in a teapot? Post a comment and let Wired.com know.